This half is going to be all about business, so if that’s not your bag, skip to the lower half of today’s entry, with my blessing.
To all business owners :
Gross revenue is not your money.
I know that’s how to think, and how you feel. You feel as though every penny that your business brings in is your money that you earned and should get to keep.
But you are wrong, wrong, wrong. And this fundamental error is the source of a great deal of tension and stress in all your business relationships.
Because that money is not yours. It belongs to all the people you have bought things from as part of running a business – from your employees to your suppliers to the people who water the plants.
They expect you to pay for what you bought from them the same way you expect your customers or clients to pay for what they bought from you.
When you treat gross revenue as if it is your money. it sets up a great deal of tension and conflict between you and those you deal with because it leads to you treating them like they are thieves trying to steal your money.
They patently are not. They, like you, are simply looking to be paid for what you bought.
But if you have fallen into this line of thinking, honor and responsibility and basic business ethics go out the window. No matter how legitimate someone’s claim on your business’ gross revenue might be, you treat them like they are thieves or bandits.
And not only is that simply unfair, not to mention highly hypocritical, it also leads down the dark path to a lot of dirty deeds that would be unthinkable to you if this moral affliction did not have you in its grip.
After all, you’re only getting “your” money back from those trying to “steal” it, and viewed that way, a lot of very bad business ethics (as well as bad business practices) suddenly become totally justified.
And it all starts with feeling like gross revenue is yours.
It is not. Gross revenue belongs to everyone you buy from.
Profit is yours. Once you have paid for all the things you need to run your business, what is left over is yours.
That is the proper and decent way to look at things. To own and run a business is to be part of a complex web of interactions with both customers and other businesses. Money comes in and goes out via many, many doors. The business world is highly interdependent. It behooves you to understand this.
To love the money comes in part and hate the money goes out part is childish, dishonorable, and counterproductive.
Accept that you have to pay for what you get just liek everyone else.
I won’t pretend this will be an easy transition to make. Once the human mind decides it owns something, it’s hard to convince it that it does not. The human mind does not like working in that direction.
But if you can make it, so much of the conflict and tension in your life will disappear and you will feel so much cleaner and stronger that you will wish you had done it years ago.
Just repeat to yourself. “That’s not my money. ”
And I promise, it will set you free.
All the above thoughts occurred to me while I was waiting for the bus so I could get home from the hospital today.
And I had my doubts about whether I should do it. After all, it’s certainly not my usual fare and I highly doubt it will reach its intended audience.
And I somehow doubt my existing audience (hello you wonderful people!) will be all that into the subject matter.
But I am glad I did it. I feel like writing it strengthened my writing skills precisely because it is unlike what I normally write. Gave my mental muscles a highly pleasant workout.
Plus, I like that I got it all down when the ideas were still glowing red-hot from the fires of creation. Time between concept and realization was quite short.
I want to move in that direction. Getting the thing done while the idea is still fresh in my mind. That way, a lot more of my thoughts make it to the real world and there is no time for me to go cold on the whole thing.
So to speak.
Not much to talk about in today’s medical adventure. Got dropped off, admitted, IV’d.
The only noteworth thing happened after I left. I chose the wrong moment to fish for my Compass card and missed the 407 bus. It pulled away while I was not looking.
D’oh! I checked the posted schedule. It said there wouldn’t be another for 19 minutes. God damn it.
After that, I was too agitated and impatient and mad at myself to sit and wait, so I walked to the next stop for the 407 in order to burn off the excesss energy.
And that worked. I was able to sit and wait and think business thoughts till the bus finally showed up at that stop.
The thing is,. I could have taken one of the other two buses that stop at that stop. They would have taken me as far as Richmond Center, and from there it is only a two block walk to my apartment.
But the 407 gets me to within ONE block of home. So clearly any other bus is completely unacceptable. Not an option. Can not do.
I hate all my weird compulsions.
Oh well. I got home. Wrote the top half of this blog entry. Slept some – I have been catching up on sleep lately, and it is a wonderful thing in the long term, but in the short term, it kicks my ass with that hyper-intense sleep that makes me feel utterly horrid when I wake up.
Sleep debt has one nasty interest rate.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.